Why are politicians so loathsome?

[Pointedstick]

Let's see, we've got Bob Filner sexually harassing and physically abusing his female staffers.

We've got Anthony Weiner repeatedly sending lewd pictures of himself to women he's not married to.

We've got Eliot Spitzer trying to salvage his career after being caught with a prostitute.

And this is from a few months ago, but let's also throw in James Schiliro demanding oral sex at gunpoint from a minor he had a police officer bring to his house and got drunk.

I could probably go on, but it would be too depressing.

[RuralEngineer]

Um...they're politicians?  It's like asking why is shit so smelly...I'm sure I could look up online all about how bacteria lives in the gut and breaks down food, releasing various gasses that have a noxious stench...but it doesn't really matter.  Shit just stinks.  Politicians are loathsome, end of story.

[MediumTex]

Any line of work that tends to attract arrogant delusional narcissists is going to generate some nasty behavior.

Why are many killers so violent?

Maybe the truth goes something like this: "Loathsome people tend to make the best politicians."

When I was younger I spent quite a bit of time around politics and politicians, and the pervasiveness of dishonesty in that profession is quite shocking.  What was shocking about it was the casual acceptance that everyone on the inside had of such behavior.  No one questioned it at all.  Complete dishonesty was utterly unremarkable.  When a new person (usually a young one) asked about whether something was honest or on the level, it would usually just be met with an eye roll or maybe some explanation that boiled down to "If you understood the issues better, you would see why we do it this way."

Politics is so saturated with dishonesty that I really think that it is best to think of politicians as simply actors on a TV show whose premise is that every single thing that every character says on every episode isn't true.  The reason that I say that most politicians would be actors on this show (rather than this simply being who they were) is that if you get most politicians away from the cameras and the groupies, many will tell you that everything they say is bullshit, but they might express surprise that everyone didn't already know this.  They're not THAT delusional to believe that what they are saying is actually true, and I think that they sometimes forget that the rest of the world isn't in on the joke.  The press also plays a crucial role in keeping these bullshit-oriented narratives plausible, since without the free programming provided by narcissistic politicians in need of attention the media outlets would have no content to sensationalize.

Imagine confronting a stage actor behind the theater after a play about something his character did on stage--most actors would just say "hey, that's a character, it's not me."  They would just treat it as a case of mistaken identity.  Politicians use a similar form of psychological trickery when they want to do very nasty things without being too troubled by their own consciences.  I'm thinking about George W. Bush when I say this.  If I stopped by his house tonight and asked him if it bothered him that WAY more American's were killed as a result of his hare brained military adventures in Afghanistan and Iraq than were killed in the 9/11 attacks to begin with, I am sure he would give me that sly smile and good old boy shrug and ask me if I wanted to watch the baseball game with him or maybe check out his new chainsaw.

The minds of many politicians are simply not capable of the kind of self-reflection that leads to a troubled conscience.  Their narcissism filters out such negative feedback and all they see in their mind's eye is various shades and configurations of their own beauty.  Bush is not the only politician who falls into this category, but he's an outstanding recent example (as Clinton was before him, though the body count from Clinton's narcissism wasn't quite as high).

***

"For people who wonder how I sleep at night after sending so many Americans off to die in what James Baker called the foreign policy equivalent of go-kart races, I would tell them that I sleep like a baby with a bellyful of Ambien-laced breast milk." [Crowd erupts in laughter]

[Lonestar]

But does not the question remain:  Do they behave this way because they are politicians OR are they politicians because they basically behave this way.

[Xan]

I think we're assuming facts not in evidence.  Sure, a lot of politicians are loathsome, but it hasn't been demonstrated that it's different from the general population.

Let's see, we've got Bob Filner sexually harassing and physically abusing his female staffers.

Non-politicians sometimes harass and abuse staffers.

We've got Anthony Weiner repeatedly sending lewd pictures of himself to women he's not married to.

Non-politicians sometimes send naked pictures of themselves to people not their wives.

We've got Eliot Spitzer trying to salvage his career after being caught with a prostitute.

Non-politicians get caught with prostitutes.

And this is from a few months ago, but let's also throw in James Schiliro demanding oral sex at gunpoint from a minor he had a police officer bring to his house and got drunk.

Non-politicians demand oral sex at gunpoint from minors that police officers bring over and...  okay you got me on this one.  But I bet a lot of people would if they had the opportunity.

[Libertarian666]

But does not the question remain:  Do they behave this way because they are politicians OR are they politicians because they basically behave this way.

They behave that way for two reasons:
1. Because they want to.
2. Because they can get away with it.

Just like police officers who get away with murder, literally in some cases.

Are there others who would like to behave that way? Of course: they're called criminals. But they don't get away with it nearly so easily.

And of course there are a very few politicians who don't behave that way, Ron Paul for one, because they don't want to. But most people who aren't loathsome don't want to be politicians, because they have better things to do with their lives and don't want to act in such ways.

This is why I don't believe in government as a solution to anything.

[Mdraf]

We do actually have recourse - just vote them out of office.  Something we can't do with Supreme Court judges who are un-elected and appointed for life and who end up making the biggest decisions which ultimately affect our country and our individual lives.  When big decisions end up 5-4 you know that the "law" has nothing to do with it.  How is that democratic?

[MediumTex]

If you had to put together a list of the 10 worst human beings in history, how many of the them would be politicians?

[Libertarian666]

If you had to put together a list of the 10 worst human beings in history, how many of the them would be politicians?

Oh, that's easy: All of them.

[moda0306]

If you had to put together a list of the 10 worst human beings in history, how many of the them would be politicians?

Isn't this kind of unfair, given the amount of power societies tend to give to politicians, often quite willingly?

I tend to think there are plenty of altogether horrible human beings, but they simply couldn't kill 100 people if they tried.  Meanwhile Hitler, while obviously a horrible guy, was given the keys (well he certainly made it a "better" machine before turning it on).  That much power would probably corrupt a decent number of people that, had they just been too stupid or uncharasmatic to get public support, would have just sat on their couches hating all the jews and gypsies in their neighborhood, and wanted to see Germany restored to its rightful place in Europe.

[notsheigetz]

I recognized right away that this is fake. No way GWB could put together a long, coherent sentence like this, or even read it without mistake off the teleprompter.

"For people who wonder how I sleep at night after sending so many Americans off to die in what James Baker called the foreign policy equivalent of go-kart races, I would tell them that I sleep like a baby with a bellyful of Ambien-laced breast milk." [Crowd erupts in laughter]

[Ad Orientem]

Not all pols are scum.

[MediumTex]

Not all pols are scum.

I don't disagree with that.  It's hard not to praise a guy who does such a kind thing.

To be fair, though, during his career as a politician, Bush Sr. did plenty of lying, cheating and killing. 

Think about the dozens of U.S. troops who were killed or injured (one of whom was a friend of mine from high school who was shot in the head during the invasion) and hundreds of Panamanians who were killed when Bush ordered the invasion of Panama in 1989 to topple the thug Manuel Noriega, who had been on the CIA payroll for almost 20 years through the mid-1980s, and who never would have been in power had it not been for the U.S., and George Bush in particular, first during his support for Noriega during his stint in the 1970s as CIA Director and then in the 1980s as head of Reagan's international drug trafficking task force, during which time money was funneled to Noriega to help suppress the drug trade in Latin America (which Noriega apparently did a reasonably good job of). 

PANAMA CITY -- December 18, 1999 (Reuters) -- Residents of a Panama City suburb set ablaze in the December 1989 U.S. invasion to oust military strongman Gen. Manuel Noriega are set to act out their collective trauma at a macabre anniversary rite on Sunday.

Every year since the December 20, 1989, invasion, residents of the capital's El Chorrillo district have built a model of one of the razed homes from their community using tires, cardboard boxes and boards, only to torch it once more, the rite's organiser, Hector Avila, told Reuters.

"Before we burn it, we are going to put Chinese explosives (powerful firecrackers) inside, and throw rockets at it as if it were the U.S. attack," Avila said.  "When it's alight, the adults from the barrio are going to rescue the children.  We'll have black bags filled with beef to represent the bodies," he added.

The dark rite, which represents a working through of the inner city neighbourhood's human losses, involves a cast of 50 adults and children.

"We do it so as not to forget what happened here, and so that people know how their neighbors died," Avila added.

The U.S. government has estimated that 300 Panamanians died in the invasion, but Panamanian human rights groups say the civilian death toll was 3,500. The number who died in El Chorrillo is unknown. Eighteen U.S. servicemen were killed. 

The all-out assault, which involved 26,000 troops -- including elite Navy Seals, Army Rangers and the Army's 82nd Airborne Division -- began with a barrage of artillery fire a few minutes before midnight on December 19, 1989.

Chorrillo residents recall watching from their homes as the full explosive force of the largest U.S. military operation since the Vietnam War rained down on the Comandancia, the former headquarters of Noriega's Panamanian Defence Forces.

"It was excessive, too much. ... It was a war without resistance," Damaris Sanchez, a street stall merchant, told Reuters, recalling the sustained artillery fire from nearby Ancon Hill, and the deafening salvos of rockets unleashed from hovering Apache helicopter gunships.

El Chorrillo was built at the turn of the century to house day labourers working on the Panama Canal. Residents said the district's close-set wooden terraces caught fire as stray rounds set alight propane gas tanks used for domestic cooking.

"It burned very quickly," Sanchez said, pointing to the barren concrete landmarks that have replaced the wooden homes that once lined the three main streets in the heart of the low-income community. "From one day to the next you couldn't recognise El Chorrillo."

[...]

As El Chorrillo readied to exorcise its shared demons on the 10th anniversary of the invasion on Sunday night, local resident Orlando Jimenez remained adamant that the military intervention was unnecessary.

"We paid the price for an invasion which other people called a just cause," he said. "They did not have to sacrifice the community to take out Noriega."

Think about the hundreds of coalition troops and the tens of thousands of Iraqi troops (many of whom were conscripts) who were killed in Gulf War I because the Bush administration bungled diplomatic communications with Iraq through the April Glaspie meeting in the summer of 1990.  Here is a transcript of the meeting between Glaspie and Saddam Hussein on July 25, 1990, eight days before Iraq invaded Kuwait:

July 25, 1990 - Presidential Palace - Baghdad

U.S. Ambassador Glaspie - I have direct instructions from President Bush to improve our relations with Iraq. We have considerable sympathy for your quest for higher oil prices, the immediate cause of your confrontation with Kuwait. (pause) As you know, I lived here for years and admire your extraordinary efforts to rebuild your country. We know you need funds. We understand that, and our opinion is that you should have the opportunity to rebuild your country. (pause) We can see that you have deployed massive numbers of troops in the south. Normally that would be none of our business, but when this happens in the context of your threat s against Kuwait, then it would be reasonable for us to be concerned. For this reason, I have received an instruction to ask you, in the spirit of friendship - not confrontation - regarding your intentions: Why are your troops massed so very close to Kuwait's borders?

Saddam Hussein - As you know, for years now I have made every effort to reach a settlement on our dispute with Kuwait. There is to be a meeting in two days; I am prepared to give negotiations only this one more brief chance. (pause) When we (the Iraqis) meet (with the Kuwaitis) and we see there is hope, then nothing will happen. But if we are unable to find a solution, then it will be natural that Iraq will not accept death.

U.S. Ambassador Glaspie - What solutions would be acceptable?

Saddam Hussein - If we could keep the whole of the Shatt al Arab - our strategic goal in our war with Iran - we will make concessions (to the Kuwaitis). But, if we are forced to choose between keeping half of the Shatt and the whole of Iraq (i.e., in Saddam s view, including Kuwait ) then we will give up all of the Shatt to defend our claims on Kuwait to keep the whole of Iraq in the shape we wish it to be. (pause) What is the United States' opinion on this?

U.S. Ambassador Glaspie - We have no opinion on your Arab - Arab conflicts, such as your dispute with Kuwait. Secretary (of State James) Baker has directed me to emphasize the instruction, first given to Iraq in the 1960's, that the Kuwait issue is not associated with America. [Saddam smiles]

Think about all of those Kurds who were killed by Saddam Hussein in 1991 (10,000+ dead and 2 million refugees) after George Bush encouraged them to rise up and topple Hussein, but then provided no military support despite having just defeated the Iraqi military in the south and having vast military resources in the region.

How Could Bush Have Prevented Kurd Fiasco?

By DAVID S. BRODER
April 11, 1991

Iraq's acceptance of the formal cease-fire terms dictated by the United States and the United Nations brings the Persian Gulf war to a close. The end of the affair teaches lessons as important as the beginning.

At the start, the miscalculations were all on Saddam Hussein's side. He did not believe that the United States would respond to his aggression against Kuwait or his threat to Saudi Arabia. He did not believe that his Soviet patrons would abandon him. He did not believe that Arab countries would join a coalition in which Israel was a silent partner. And he did not believe that his army and air force would crumble under fire.

All those miscalculations created a situation in which President Bush, as the creator and leader of the coalition, achieved as much for peace and the rule of law in the world as he did for his own political standing at home. It was a victory well won - and worth winning.

But since Bush declared the hostilities suspended, the miscalculations have been on our side. The victims were the Kurds who believed the United States would support their bid to overthrow Hussein, and the Bush backers who believed that morality and principle required him to do just that. Their cries of disillusionment have filled the airwaves and the newspaper columns, given moral force by the heartbreaking television pictures of the plight of the Kurdish refugees.

The Kurds have reason to cry out against the latest injustice in a history of international abuse. The President did encourage civil insurrection against Hussein by his own words and - it is hinted - by covert actions as well. To say now that he also made it clear the United States would not intervene directly in the struggle is at best a mitigating claim against the moral responsibility he accepted.

If we wanted Hussein overthrown, without our participation, it behooved us to strip him of the forces he needed to quash the threats to his rule. That we did not do. White House national security adviser Brent Scowcroft said Sunday on NBC's Meet the Press that, when we declared a halt to the battle, Hussein still had 20 unscarred divisions.

That fact - and not the subsequent U.S. decision to allow Iraqi helicopter gunships to be used against the Kurds and against Shiite rebels in the south - determined the fate of the rebellion. Had we grounded the helicopters, Scowcroft said, "it would have taken the Iraqi forces longer . . . but it would not have changed the outcome."

To change the outcome, we would have had to destroy those remaining Iraqi divisions. We had the capacity to do that, and Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf hinted in his interview with David Frost that he had wished to do it. But destroying those 20 divisions would have meant slaughtering troops who had abandoned the fight and wanted only to surrender. Those who charge Bush with moral callousness toward the Kurds do not explain how we would have been on a higher moral plane if we had massacred surrendering Iraqis.

Nonetheless, the disillusionment with Bush being expressed by many who supported his war policy tarnishes his victory. It also reveals something of the character of this President, who has demonstrated over and over again that he is ready to "rise above principle" when it collides with power realities.

Bush was in the fortunate position, when Iraq invaded Kuwait, of being able to argue for intervention on a hierarchy of causes, ranging from the American national interest in protecting access to Persian Gulf oil, to international law against aggression, to the moral revulsion against Iraqi atrocities in Kuwait. All of the justifications added weight to a powerful case for U.S. and international action against Hussein.

But no one should have believed that, absent the national interest in the Persian Gulf and its precious resource, half a million Americans would have been fighting in the desert.

Principle alone simply doesn't cut it with Bush. He kept 2,100 Marines offshore Liberia for two months in 1990, waiting to evacuate Americans and other foreign nationals, while volunteer doctors pleaded that they come ashore and protect civilians being slaughtered in the fighting between rebels and the U.S.-backed government.

He sent Scowcroft to Beijing and recommended continued trade advantages for China even after the massacre of students in Tiananmen Square. He sent his secretary of state to Moscow and continued dealing with Mikhail Gorbachev even after the bloody repression in the Baltics last winter. With both the Chinese and the Soviets, Bush said it could not be "business as usual," then went back to business as usual.

The American public seems to accept these compromises as necessary. Principle separated from a clear sense of national interest led to such foreign policy fiascos as Versailles and Vietnam. So voters welcome a President who tempers principle with prudence. But others pay a high price for the selectivity of our moral outrage.

I applaud him shaving his head to make this little girl feel better, but I think that you have to judge him on his overall body of work.

[dualstow]

Not all politicians are loathsome. Just the ones we give our votes too.
When someone like Harry Browne comes along, he doesn't get votes.
And, if he somehow did get elected, he would be foiled by the loathsome machine that is Congress.

Actually, I don't find Obama to be loathsome. Ok, let the tomatoes fly ;-)

[MediumTex]

Not all politicians are loathsome. Just the ones we give our votes too.
When someone like Harry Browne comes along, he doesn't get votes.
And, if he somehow did get elected, he would be foiled by the loathsome machine that is Congress.

Actually, I don't find Obama to be loathsome. Ok, let the tomatoes fly ;-)

Obama is no worse than any of his predecessors.  IMHO, anyone who says that he is somehow worse has forgotten many of the misdeeds and misadventures of his predecessors.

Think about all of the death and destruction that resulted from the delusions of Woodrow Wilson, FDR, Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson, George Bush (outlined above) and George W. Bush.

In the circus of American Presidents, I would say the Obama is basically an average clown.

[AdamA]

Not all politicians are loathsome. Just the ones we give our votes too.
When someone like Harry Browne comes along, he doesn't get votes.
And, if he somehow did get elected, he would be foiled by the loathsome machine that is Congress.

Actually, I don't find Obama to be loathsome. Ok, let the tomatoes fly ;-)

Obama is no worse than any of his predecessors.  IMHO, anyone who says that he is somehow worse has forgotten many of the misdeeds and misadventures of his predecessors.

Think about all of the death and destruction that resulted from the delusions of Woodrow Wilson, FDR, Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson, George Bush (outlined above) and George W. Bush.

In the circus of American Presidents, I would say the Obama is basically an average clown.

I mean...I doubt I would do any better. 

Leadership is a weird thing. 

[MediumTex]

he probably is just an average clown when the dirty deeds are added up,
  but something about him is different, i think its the brutal transparency of his smarmy political calculating personality. i don't know if he is truly more obvious than those that came before or if the peoples (or my) eyesight has improved over the years, but i get a form of political nausea when ever he speaks that i don't recall getting from previous presidents even when i thought they were awful or up to no good...

Check out Nixon's speech announcing the closing of the gold window.

Virtually every single word of this speech turned out to be a lie.

Pretty smarmy.

http://youtu.be/iRzr1QU6K1o

he probably is just an average clown when the dirty deeds are added up............

But Romney lost the election.

most do seem to be heading in that direction, i didn't care much for Romney either and got a slightly milder version of the same feeling from him. they are all kind of like watching a combination of wooden low budget actors combined with the kind of " NO NO DON'T LISTEN" gut wrenching response you would get watching a charismatic Ted Bundy charm a young girl into the back of a van...

[Libertarian666]

Not all politicians are loathsome. Just the ones we give our votes too.
When someone like Harry Browne comes along, he doesn't get votes.
And, if he somehow did get elected, he would be foiled by the loathsome machine that is Congress.

Actually, I don't find Obama to be loathsome. Ok, let the tomatoes fly ;-)

You obviously have a different notion of loathsomeness than I do.

[Libertarian666]

Not all politicians are loathsome. Just the ones we give our votes too.
When someone like Harry Browne comes along, he doesn't get votes.
And, if he somehow did get elected, he would be foiled by the loathsome machine that is Congress.

Actually, I don't find Obama to be loathsome. Ok, let the tomatoes fly ;-)

Obama is no worse than any of his predecessors.  IMHO, anyone who says that he is somehow worse has forgotten many of the misdeeds and misadventures of his predecessors.

Think about all of the death and destruction that resulted from the delusions of Woodrow Wilson, FDR, Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson, George Bush (outlined above) and George W. Bush.

In the circus of American Presidents, I would say the Obama is basically an average clown.

I mean...I doubt I would do any better. 

Leadership is a weird thing.

I am absolutely certain that I would do much better.
Until I was assassinated.

[RuralEngineer]

Not all politicians are loathsome. Just the ones we give our votes too.
When someone like Harry Browne comes along, he doesn't get votes.
And, if he somehow did get elected, he would be foiled by the loathsome machine that is Congress.

Actually, I don't find Obama to be loathsome. Ok, let the tomatoes fly ;-)

Obama is no worse than any of his predecessors.  IMHO, anyone who says that he is somehow worse has forgotten many of the misdeeds and misadventures of his predecessors.

Think about all of the death and destruction that resulted from the delusions of Woodrow Wilson, FDR, Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson, George Bush (outlined above) and George W. Bush.

In the circus of American Presidents, I would say the Obama is basically an average clown.

I find Obama to be significantly worse than his predecessors...to me.  His malfeasance is impacting me directly in a way that Bush and Clinton did not.  Part of that is because I was so young.  It's tough though because how do you score the civil rights violations...the man who has turned all the knobs to 11 or the man who enacted the legislation in the first place.  Personally Obama brought us the NDAA and indefinite detention (he signed it, I realize Congress drafted it, they're on my shit list too) and assassination by drone without trial.  Those trump the NSA spying implemented by Bush in my book, hence Obama wins in my opinion.  But lets be honest, we the people are all the losers in this competition, regardless.

Also, I do not subscribe to the theory that Politicians are a representative sample of the population whose bad behavior overrepresented due to power and the press.  I think that Politicians are by and large sociopaths that our political process sifts and sorts the general population for until it has concentrated them.  I think the reason our Politicians are so loathsome (ignoring my flippant answer in my original post) is a combination of the type of people who want to be politicians and the method we use to select them.

[Ad Orientem]

George Bush did indefinite detention too. He just didn't bother with Congressional approval.

[RuralEngineer]

George Bush did indefinite detention too. He just didn't bother with Congressional approval.

I forgot about that.  That was illegal and should have been handled by the courts, assuming we had any courts worth a damn.  But I still maintain that Obama codifying it into our laws is worse that Bush going rogue.  I'll amend my statement of 'Obama is significantly worse' to slightly worse.  But I maintain that he is worse.

[moda0306]

George Bush did indefinite detention too. He just didn't bother with Congressional approval.

I forgot about that.  That was illegal and should have been handled by the courts, assuming we had any courts worth a damn.  But I still maintain that Obama codifying it into our laws is worse that Bush going rogue.  I'll amend my statement of 'Obama is significantly worse' to slightly worse.  But I maintain that he is worse.

I tend to like coercion I can see and understand, rather than stuff that sneaks up on me and is unavoidable.

Maybe that's just me. But I tend to think the worst forms of coercion or confiscation, as an individual, are the ones I can't avoid or can't see coming.

[Libertarian666]

George Bush did indefinite detention too. He just didn't bother with Congressional approval.

I forgot about that.  That was illegal and should have been handled by the courts, assuming we had any courts worth a damn.  But I still maintain that Obama codifying it into our laws is worse that Bush going rogue.  I'll amend my statement of 'Obama is significantly worse' to slightly worse.  But I maintain that he is worse.

I tend to like coercion I can see and understand, rather than stuff that sneaks up on me and is unavoidable.

Maybe that's just me. But I tend to think the worst forms of coercion or confiscation, as an individual, are the ones I can't avoid or can't see coming.

Then I'm sorry to say that you have some real "treats" in store. Unfortunately for all of us.

[MediumTex]

George Bush did indefinite detention too. He just didn't bother with Congressional approval.

I forgot about that.  That was illegal and should have been handled by the courts, assuming we had any courts worth a damn.  But I still maintain that Obama codifying it into our laws is worse that Bush going rogue.  I'll amend my statement of 'Obama is significantly worse' to slightly worse.  But I maintain that he is worse.

Realistically, the George W. Bush/Barack Obama era is about like the Lyndon Johnson/Richard Nixon era, except that the second narcissistic sociopaths in these two eras were from different states.